Posted on 07/09/2013 11:15:43 AM PDT by Bob Ireland
For some years I have listened to Rush Limbaugh, and heard him picture Medicare recipients as some sort of ungrateful leaches sucking off of the public dole. He characterizes them as resisting having to pay a dime for their medical coverage.
Being a fan of Rush, I have tolerated this misguidance on his part and sent him e-mails [I am 24-7 member] trying to save him from being caught in a 'lie'. He has never responded to these e-mails - for whatever reason.
Then yesterday - Monday - he mentioned a story about the Congress considering a bill to make Medicare recipients pay 'a few pennies' for their medical coverage - and the bill going down to defeat. I simply cannot remain silent in the face of this total fabrication.
I have been on Medicare for 15 years. My Medicare Part B presently costs me a little pocket change short of $100 a month - a little less that $1,200 a year. That money is deducted out of my Social Security check before I ever receive it. That benefit offers to pay 80% of my allowable medical bills, and I am responsible for the other 20%.
In my case - since I look at government programs with a jaundiced eye - I have signed my Medicare obligations over to a private HMO [called an Advantage Plan]. However, Obama's health care plan has drained the Medicare treasury by hundreds of billions of dollars; therefore the future of the program is in question. In some states I understand the Advantage Plans have already been canceled. Many doctors and hospitals are trying to figure how to get free of Medicare since the Medicare payments are either delayed, diminished or missing altogether. I still cannot be sure my HMO will be part of Medicare next year.
BUT, back to the main theme of this article: How many FReepers pay $1,200 a year for their medical insurance? Probably some do; likely most do not. I am not complaining about paying for my health care - I voluntarily and happily pay the premium.
Furthermore, if it becomes a matter of saving the dollar from total collapse I would accept the cancellation of Medicare altogether. Just stop charging me $100 a month and send the program into the Bermuda Triangle. I have led a fruitful life. HOWEVER, under Obama's healthcare program, that cannot happen. My Medicare could be cancelled and I could be set with the old Indian squaw by the side of the road to waste away - but I would still have to pay my health care premium in order to provide health care for younger folk.
Would someone who can get through to Rush Limbaugh get these points across to him - if he is really interested - so that people can understand the truth about Medicare - not a bunch of myths and misrepresentations.
+10
“Medicaid has NO premiums and NO copays and NO co-insurance and NO deductibles...NO money out of pocket period. It is considered a “program”, NOT insurance and is run by the state.”
Sorry but you are incorrect. “As of 2003 , 43 states charge some sort of co-pay to some or all Medicaid eligible individuals” according to a paper from the American Academy of Family Physicians.
LOL. I am not talking about you personally. I am talking about Medicare Part B as a whole. The premiums that you and I pay for Medicare Part B in the aggregate only pay for 25% of all the costs associated with Medicare Part B nationwide. The remaining 75% of the costs are paid out of general revenue. It is the reason why Medicare is consuming an ever increasing part of the annual federal budget.
Do you have any idea as to how the USG comes up with the premiums to charge for Medicare Part B, which is now partially means-tested? The premiums are based on what it takes to cover 25% of the total costs.
You need to get better informed about Medicare before posting a thread about it.
I’m torn on this. I know a person that might be on the hook for a $13K med bill that was supposed to be covered by Medicare. Medicare is saying the stay in a nursing home is not covered. This person and their spouse have received probably in the hundreds of thousands of medical over the years...including many doctor visits, nursing home stays, hospital stays, and operations. They were guaranteed this, but everything is for “free” and expected to be for “free”. And our country is broke. Personally, I’d much rather the country continue to take care of the old folks and cut off the real blood suckers in this country, but there’s going to have to be some kind of reform and there’s no one with the balls, desire, fortitude, and mind out there to get it done. The Dems certainly have no desire...they want more people dependent.
Would someone please tell Rush to stop misrepresenting the Medicare program?
Glad you mentioned that your employer pays most of the freight; most folks have no appreciation of that little detail (or of the fact that it is to large degree reflected in lower wages.)
I’m self-employed with two college-age dependents. A $10,000 deductible policy costs me around $12k/year. This is the sort of insurance that I hope I never get a reimbursement from because it would mean that either one of us got cancer or had a serious car wreck. Until I get to the $10k deductible, my co-pay is 100%.
I look forward to paying $1200/yr or so for Medicare in a few years, assuming it lasts that long.
Hopefully Rush is learning compassion...
Then please campaign to end the program... and stop charging me then.
Would you mind supplying the quotes from Rush’s transcripts to support your argument, please? Personally, I haven’t heard Limbaugh say anything along those lines (leeches) about MediCARE recipients, unless it was a slip of the tongue when he was meaning MediCAID. I have heard him in the past question SSDI and Medicare Disability in the past. According to CNS News, there is a record 10,978,040 people drawing Social Security Disability (more than the total population in 43 states). Why is Medicare being drained? It’s not from the retirees. Look no farther than the epidemic of disability.
One can only hope... :-) My, what a long thread almost completely off point.
Wow! It has been awhile since you had private insurance, hasn’t it?
We pay $356 monthly for the family plan that has a set group of providers (Unlike Medicare) and if we go outside that group they only pay 50%.
Yeah, some people deserve and need medicare. Others are leaches that have sucked off the teat of this country and that is the ones Rush bashes.
$1,200/yr? That’s a bargain, IMO.
Geisinger Single Payer for me is $6,000/yr with $2,500 deductible. When I had my Family Farm Business, the group policy was $3,000/yr w/ $500 deductible, per person, for 5+ participants. I closed 11/1/11, after 22yrs.
I’d love to have that back.
Congratulations. I think yours may be the dumbest remark in all of Free Republic. Again, congratulations.
Social Security’s Disability Insurance (DI) program satisfies neither the Trustees’ long-range test of close actuarial balance nor their short-range test of financial adequacy and faces the most immediate financing shortfall of any of the separate trust funds. DI Trust Fund reserves expressed as a percent of annual cost (the trust fund ratio) declined to 85 percent at the beginning of 2013, and the Trustees project trust fund depletion in 2016, the same year projected in the last Trustees Report. DI cost has exceeded non-interest income since 2005, and the trust fund ratio has declined since peaking in 2003. While legislation is needed to address all of Social Security’s financial imbalances, the need has become most urgent with respect to the program’s DI component. Lawmakers need to act soon to avoid reduced payments to DI beneficiaries three years from now.
I'm just an independent contractor in NE Illinois. How can I campaign against Medicare and stop charging you for it? If you have a method I haven't discovered, please share.
Your silly comments no longer merit a response.
You seem determined to miss the point: the Medicare program is only partly paid for by its beneficiaries, with the taxpayers at large and the entire US economy on the hook for the balance. Rush’s telling of this truth may be too rough for your liking, but he is correct on the facts.
That’s why I figured you’re trollin’ . . . .
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